It looks like the lens that best fits my needs is the Olympus 9~18mm rather than the 2 I actually asked about!

Thanks again.

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Really? That's a very eccentric choice from my PoV.

Why? It's small enough to be part of a multi lens kit, it's wider than the 12mm and more versatile, it takes filters, and I've read reviews that put it on a par with the Panasonic 7~14 when used on Olympus camera (the Panny has an advantage on Panasonic cameras that won't apply on Oly bodies, i.e distortion correction).

Not correct. Both Oly and Pany bodies apply the same distortion correction to the lens. The 7-14 is superior to the 9-18 for resolution, speed, and maximum FoV on Oly and Pany bodies alike. The 9-18 is smaller, cheaper and takes filters. When it comes to filters, be aware that polarizers are not easily used on UWAs due to their uneven effect when the FoV is large.

indeed this is true, and UWA tend to have quite a polarising effect anyway. But its true that if you did want to use filters 9-18 is probably the go, but my own SG is not nearly as good as my SHG 7-14 but then these are a different system altogether with different costs.

It must be some kind of UWA thing as neither of the 7-14s have threads and its also true of Nikons 14-24mm which dont have a filter thread either, although Canons 16-35mm take 82mm, the odd man out.

Yes, it's pretty tricky to combine filters with a bulbuous front element and a very wide FoV.

not that its actually necessaryat one time I used to shoot with a Grad ND quite a lotthese days I dont even know where the thing is

I think we largely agree that abstaining from using filters with UWAs is hardly a major concession. See here and here.﻿

fact is, if you are shooting say for instance 'landscapes' then its just going to be unnecessary, particularly given the qualities of the best sensors these daysjust shoot RAW, select and tonemap it, indeed one can even process, push process video

processing will eventually remove multi sensor video cameras from the marketI predicted a few years ago that processing is the future, so it is for videoand its available now for ordinary users

the outstanding problem for all cameras is not enough lightsince filters dont fix that, theyre all but redundant

Unlike the 2 lenses I was considering originally it ticks all the boxes with fewer compromises.

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